A Warning to Lydia
by ILiveADaydream
Summary: Elizabeth can't stop Lydia from going to Brighton, but maybe she can drive the point home that not all pretty faces can be trusted. A sisterly conversation could change the course of the books. One-shot.


Happy 10th Anniversary to me! No, it isn't my tenth anniversary of marriage, I'm pretty much perpetually single; it's my 10th fanfiction anniversary! 10 years ago today I created my first account. Ten years of reading and writing fanfiction. It took me a while to figure out what to post for this, and this might not be my only post of the day. But I thought for ten years, I should break some new ground and make my first post in the _Pride and Prejudice_ fandom. It's just a one-shot I came up with while taking a Jane Austen class a few months ago, but I think it could be an interesting twist to the P&P storyline.

So all I can say is, thanks for ten amazing years everyone.

 _Happy Reading!_

* * *

Although Elizabeth was wary of telling her gossiping younger sister anything even close to secret, her sense of sisterly duty demanded she inform Lydia of Mr. Wickham's character before the young girl went to Brighton. If her father would not check the girl, something needed to be done.

"Lydia," Elizabeth called the girl aside the morning before she was to leave, "will you walk with me for a bit?"

"But Lizzy, I am trimming this bonnet!"

"Please Lydia. I will help you trim your bonnet later, but for now will you walk with me?"

"Oh very well. And can we use some of that ribbon Aunt Phillips gave you? I think it would go splendidly with it!"

With Kitty watching them go and Mary playing away at the piano, Elizabeth and Lydia went out into the garden. Once they were away from the house and any eavesdroppers, Elizabeth began to speak.

"When I was away I learned some things about one of our acquaintance that you need to know," the elder Bennet began. Lydia's previously bored expression lit up at the thought of new gossip.

"Oh who is it about! Mr. Collins? Or one of the officers?"

"One of the officers yes- Lieutenant Wickham, in fact."

"Is he the secret heir to a fortune? Does he have a bride somewhere?"

"No," Elizabeth shook her head, wondering if her sister had come across some penny dreadfuls while visiting Mrs. Foster or Mrs. Phillips, "but not for lack of trying."

"What do you mean, Lizzy?"

"Mr. Wickham is not a very good sort of man, Liddy. Last summer he tried to elope with a young gentlewoman for her fortune, and when stopped by her brother insulted the girl most terribly."

"Why? Would she not marry him? I'd love to marry an officer!"

"He wasn't an officer then, Lydia, and she didn't want to go against her brother, especially when it came out that he was not at all interested in her, but rather in her money."

"Was she really very rich?"

"Very much so."

"Why are you telling me this, Lizzy?" Lydia pouted.

"I wanted you to know his character before you left Lydia, so that you would understand that he, and men like him, can have a pretty face and good manners but a disgraceful character."

"So he didn't marry the girl, so what?" Lydia petulantly questioned.

"He is also, according to my source, a reprobate gambler, who leaves behind debts and ruined maidens wherever he goes. He is not a good man, Lydia, not a gentleman at all. He would never be able to keep a wife—especially a gentleman's daughter—equipped with all the ribbons and fancy gowns she was accustomed to." Elizabeth knew how much Lydia liked her pretty things.

"You're just jealous!" Lydia stomped her foot. "You're just jealous that I get to go to Brighton and you don't!"

"No Lydia, I'm not jealous," Elizabeth sighed. She didn't wish to go to Brighton, although she wouldn't mind a chance to visit the sea. "I just want you to be cautious. Men are not always what they seem and I wouldn't want you to get hurt by believing one."

"Mr. Wickham wouldn't hurt me! Besides, you heard what Mr. Darcy did to him!"

"Mr. Wickham lied about Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth quickly said, which made Lydia give her a suspicious look. "Mr. Darcy, while being rather willing to look down on those he considers below him," the disastrous marriage proposal in which he had insulted her family came to mind, "is very much a dutiful man, and would not fail to fulfil his father's wishes. From what I know, he paid Mr. Wickham a lump sum in lieu of the living and Mr. Wickham wasted all three thousand pounds of it in several years."

"You know an awful lot about this, Lizzy," Lydia narrowed her eyes, "who were your sources?"

"No one you know," Lizzy lied, "some of Aunt Gardiner's acquaintances, from Lambton."

"So Mr. Wickham isn't who he says he is?" Lydia asked curiously, a mischievous sparkle forming in her eyes. Elizabeth realized that her sister had cottoned on to the fact she'd been handed a snippet of gossip even Aunt Phillips didn't have. At least with this, she would be too busy maligning the right man's character to get in trouble with him.

"I believe some of what he said was true—he is indeed the son of Mr. Darcy's father's steward—but he misrepresented Mr. Darcy most unkindly."

"Do you like Mr. Darcy now?" Lydia frowned. Elizabeth tried not to react.

"Truthfully Lydia, I do not know. I know such different accounts of him as to puzzle me exceedingly."

"La, he was a bore, Lizzy, dutiful or not!" Lydia skipped, obviously done with the conversation. She turned back toward the house at a quick pace. "Come Lizzy, we must go to Meryton at once!"

Elizabeth protested the necessity of an immediate visit to their Aunt Phillips, but went along anyway, happy that her sister seemed to have paid a minimal amount of attention to what she had imparted.

Perhaps the trip to Brighton would not turn out so badly after all?


End file.
